A black hole has blasted out a surprisingly powerful jet in the distant universe, according to a new study from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and discussed in our latest press release. This jet exists early enough in the cosmos that it is being illuminated by the leftover glow from the big bang itself. Astronomers used […]
Category: Marshall Space Flight Center
NASA’s IXPE Obtains First X-ray Polarization Measurement of Magnetar Outburst
What happens when the universe’s most magnetic object shines with the power of 1000 Suns in a matter of seconds? Thanks to NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer), a mission in collaboration with ASI (Italian Space Agency), scientists are one step closer to understanding this extreme event. Magnetars are a type of young neutron star […]
Galaxy Clusters on Course to Crash Again, NASA’s Chandra Finds
New observations from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes have captured a rare cosmic event: two galaxy clusters have collided and are now poised to head back for another swipe at each other. Galaxy clusters are some of the largest structures in the Universe. Held together by gravity, they are monster-sized collections of hundreds […]
Eccentric ‘Star’ Defies Easy Explanation, NASA’s Chandra Finds
Scientists have discovered a star behaving like no other seen before, giving fresh clues about the origin of a new class of mysterious objects. As described in our press release, a team of astronomers combined data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the SKA [Square Kilometer Array] Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope on Wajarri Country in […]
NASA’s Artemis III Core Stage Receives Thermal Protection Coating
NASA completed another step to ready its SLS (Space Launch System) rocket for the Artemis III mission as crews at the agency’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans recently applied a thermal protection system to the core stage’s liquid hydrogen tank. Building on the crewed Artemis II flight test, Artemis III will add new capabilities […]
25 Years of NASA Student Launch
Students from the University of Massachusetts Amherst team carry their high-powered rocket toward the launch pad at NASA’s 2025 Student Launch launch day competition in Toney, Alabama, on April 4, 2025. More than 980 middle school, high school, and college students from across the nation launched more than 40 high-powered amateur rockets just north of […]
NASA Telescopes Tune Into a Black Hole Prelude, Fugue
NASA released three new pieces of cosmic sound Thursday that are associated with the densest and darkest members of our universe: black holes. These scientific productions are sonifications — or translations into sound — of data collected by NASA telescopes in space including the Chandra X-ray Observatory, James Webb Space Telescope, and Imaging X-ray Polarimetry […]
NASA’s IXPE Reveals X-ray-Generating Particles in Black Hole Jets
The blazar BL Lacertae, a supermassive black hole surrounded by a bright disk and jets oriented toward Earth, provided scientists with a unique opportunity to answer a longstanding question: How are X-rays generated in extreme environments like this? NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) collaborated with radio and optical telescopes to find answers. The results […]
NASA’s IXPE Reveals X-ray-Generating Particles in Black Hole Jets
The blazar BL Lacertae, a supermassive black hole surrounded by a bright disk and jets oriented toward Earth, provided scientists with a unique opportunity to answer a longstanding question: How are X-rays generated in extreme environments like this? NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) collaborated with radio and optical telescopes to find answers. The results […]
NASA’s Chandra Diagnoses Cause of Fracture in Galactic “Bone”
Astronomers have discovered a likely explanation for a fracture in a huge cosmic “bone” in the Milky Way galaxy, using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and radio telescopes. The bone appears to have been struck by a fast-moving, rapidly spinning neutron star, or pulsar. Neutron stars are the densest known stars and form from the collapse and explosion of massive stars. They […]